I think every situation I’ve been in involved a person using the same spatula or tong to serve meat that they used to touch the original uncooked meat. Does stainless steel possess antibiotic properties like nickel or have I just been getting really lucky my whole life.
No cookware of any kind used to handle raw meat should never be used to handle cooked meat without thorough washing in between. (I am unaware of any antibiotic properties of nickel.) This would be a code violation in a restaurant.
I will say that when I grill, I use the same tongs to handle the meat from start to finish once it’s on the grill. Perhaps the exposure to the heat of the grill is sufficient to kill any bacteria. I really don’t know.
But you should never, for example, put your cooked meat on the same plate it were on when it was raw.
Some metals like copper or silver (I may be confusing nickel with silver) have antibiotic properties. I do not know if stainless steel has any though, or if cookware used for barbeques has a coating of antibiotic metal on it.
No, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness is the use of metal utensils on both raw poultry and cooked foods ready to be consumed.
Generally, it doesnt matter how contaminated a bird is, the cooking kills everything. But if some of that contamination gets onto cooked food, then it is free to spread and cause damage.
When I grill, I place the meat or chicken on the grill with one fork/tong/spat, and then either wash it, or get a clean one to use from then on.
Wow. You spend your whole life at barbecues? 
Pretty much. The only reason I spend so much time on the internet is because I weigh 700 pounds now. Luckily I have my reaching broom to help me turn on the TV.
I always leave the working end of the spatula in the heat so that it gets cooked too.
I combine Rick’s and Pleonast’s method. I wash the thing after placing the meat onto the grill, and then let the end cook after flipping.
No, metal BBQ tools absolutely do NOT have antimicrobial properties.
Yes, foodborne illness can definitely be spread by contaminated tools.
No, it doesn’t happen very often, because it requires both the presence of the nasty bug to begin with and enough time for it to reproduce to dangerous levels. If you infect your burger as you take it off the grill and then eat it right away, there most likely won’t be enough time for the nasty stuff to reproduce enough to do anything. But if you infect your burger then let it sit on a table for a few hours, then you could end up counting the holes in your bathroom ceiling.